"If something interesting or significant happens in our lives and we do not immediately make it our Facebook status, DID IT REALLY HAPPEN? The answer is, yes, of course it happened; and yet, millions upon millions of people feel increasingly compelled to validate their everyday experiences via Facebook, Myspace, texting, Twitter, Tweets and all the titillating variations thereof. Our dependence upon gadgets of technology to navigate our narratives has reached epic, if not epidemic, proportions. Technology is a mixed bag: teeming with obvious benefits and seething with subtle consequences. As social networks accelerate, genuine solitude is sliding closer into obsolescence. We will dedicate this evening to analyzing social technology’s multifarious effects on our culture and our psyches." - Connolly Ryan

Professor Connolly Ryan, a UMass alum, lecturer, and teacher of the honors seminar, "Ideas that Changed the World." Professor Ryan is a three-time finalist for the Distinguished Teaching Award at UMass and his poems have been published in several notable journals and magazines.